


The Answer

by devilangelsol



Category: Danny Phantom, Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Anthropofobia, Dan's got some issues, Friendship, Fusion, Gen, Got the title from that SU episode, Jazz is the best sister evah, Misunderstandings, Oranges, Post TUE, Pre-Phantom Planet, Temporary ghost powers, Transformation Trinket, badger cereal
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-06
Updated: 2018-09-05
Packaged: 2019-03-01 09:31:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 13,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13292004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devilangelsol/pseuds/devilangelsol
Summary: Dark Danny wreaked havoc and destruction on both realms in The Ultimate Enemy. Clockwork made sure to stop him. But he never said that the halfa would never walk the earth again... and if Dark Danny did return, who would have the power to go against him?Or, in which Dan is created... in adifferentway.





	1. Opposite Attraction

**Author's Note:**

> I am honestly surprised that I haven't run across a fanfic like this yet. I am remedying that.

It was a nice, normal day in Amity Park: birds were singing, flowers were blooming, and the sky was lit up by flashes of green and mavue from the battle that was taking place over the town square. The locals, who had long since gotten used to supernatural crazyness, stepped out of the way of wayward plasma blasts and continued on about their business.

  
"Our local ghost hero, 'Danny Phantom', is engaged in a fight with a violent anthropomorphic entity! Info from our resident ghostfighters states that this foe is known as the Wisconstin Ghost, although it looks more like something from Transilvania, if you ask me! This is Lance Thunder, coming to you live!

 

  
"Give it back! You don't know what you're holding!" Plasmius hissed as he and Danny circled around each other at high speed.  
  
Danny snorted "As if! Knowing you, it's probably a doomsday device or something." He was a bit curious, though: the other seemed particularly keen on not fighting, and his energy blasts lacked their usual power. Heck, he hadn't even asked Danny to become his evil apprentice yet that day! If that wasn't a big red warning flag, he didn't know _what_ was: a reserved Vlad was a plotting Vlad.

  
The vampiric ghost growled in frustration.  
"I assure you, Daniel, that I have never intended to destroy the world. I am not even trying to take over it this time! Now would you _please_ give that back before you drop it or explode it or set it off somehow?"  
"'Set it off?' So it _is_ a weapon!" Danny exclaimed, glancing at the trinket he was holding. It was a little V-shaped pin, completely ordinary looking, aside from the fact that it sent off the faint light that he had come to associate with anything from the GZ.  
"It isn't... oh, butter nuts!" The older halfa split into two clones and tried to wrestle it out of the younger's grip. Danny juggled it midair as he dodged the two, sending ectoplasm rays their way; one swooped down, and one went after him. The teen was so focused on blocking the attack that he didn't notice when the other clone came up behind him: he slammed into him at full speed.

  
Momentarily dazed, he shook his head, trying to clear it... and dropped the pin.  
He heard the two Vlads shouting in unison as they dove down after it.  
  
There was a moment of silence. Then the world exploded in red flames.

 

"What on earth..." Danny mumbled, as the light died down. He glanced around, looking for his adversary.  
And then he saw him. Being crushed to death by a gigantic ghost that hadn't been there a couple seconds ago.

  
It was almost as big as the oak tree in the park. It - no, he, as it was obviously male - was wearing an orange suit with a green tie (is he colourblind?), had red eyes, tan skin, and perfectly coiffed dark-purple hair. And was... vaguely familiar? He was also holding a huge microphone that crackled with red ecoplasmic energy.  
**"What HAPPENED?"** It roared, shaking the older halfa up and down like a rag doll. A bunch of people ( _phans_ , he noted with a groan), who had been standing nearby screamed and fled.  
Danny, wincing at the static, wondered if he shouldn't just let the two duke it out before sucking them into the thermos: whoever this new ghost was, it seemed like his problems were with Vlad. Then there came another pinkish-red explosion, and _another_ ghost rose up (from where, the _ground_?)  
She had red eyes and blue skin, but there was no mistaking that curly (white) hair: he was looking straight at a giant ghost Paulina.

  
And she was staring right back at him. _Crud._  
**"Ghost boooooyyyy!!!!"** She yelled, jumping and flying straight at him. **"I'm a ghost again like that time! Does that mean you will date me now?"**

  
Meanwhile the other had gotten tired with shaking his captive, and threw him. The halfa flew about two hundred yards before impacting into a hill.  
Danny evaded his classmate's lookalike, zooming towards the Plasmius-shaped hole.  
  
"Alright, fruitloop. Care to tell me why there's a giant undead version of my classmate that wants to date/kill me?"  
Vlad glared up at him.  
"I don't know why a giant ectoplasmic entity would want to date you, Daniel. I assure you, I have better things to do that keep track of your love life."  
"You know what I meant! That thing you had, it turned them into ghosts, right?"  
"Well, you seem to have answered yourself. Care to let me go now? I think your _aquaintance_ over there is trying to get your attention."  
Danny turned around just in time to see the Paulina-ghost and the... weatherman-ghost? send pink and red blasts their way.  
  
The two halfas scattered, the patch of ground on which they had been moments before disintegrating into atoms.  
"Why on EARTH did you have something that turns humans into ghosts? Actually, don't answer that, I really don't want to know. _Please_ tell me that they aren't really dead, and that it'll wear off soon or something."  
"And you were doing so well. I'm dissapointed." Vlad sneered "And yes, it's only temporary. Although if it had been up to me, it wouldn't have been."  He broke off, muttering. Danny, not catching the last part, slumped in relief, only to tense up again when a pink ray missed him by a hair's breadth.  
  
"So, now that they're ghosts, they're acting solely on their ghostly obsession." he murmured to himself. "Huh. I thought the weatherman would be like Vortex or something."  
The teen hero flew close to the ground, dodging the volley of fireballs, sending a few back in return.  
He spotted a fire hydrant on the corner of the park. "Bingo. I wish Sam or Tucker were here..." he mumbled unhappily "This would be so much easier if there was someone else to distract them." He turned around and shouted.  
"I AM NEVER GOING TO DATE YOU! YOU'RE SO UGLY EVEN GEEKS WOULD RUN WHEN THEY SEE YOU! AND YOUR TV SHOW SUCKS, WEATHERMAN-GUY!"  
The giants howled with rage, flames burning sky-high as they charged at him.  
**"YOU'RE GOING TO PAY FOR THAT!"**  
"Or am I?"The teen grinned, aiming a ghost ray right at the hydrant. The pillar of water that burst out of it hit the two ghosts right in the face, and they toppled over.  
  
Danny alighted next to the smoking heap, and took a bow towards an immaginary audience.  
"And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you capture giant fire-"  
"DANIEL! LOOK OUT!"

Vlad barreled into him, pushing him out of the way of the wall of fire that suddenly appeared.  
"Foolish boy! Making them angrier makes them more powerful! A little dousing isn't going to cut it!"  
The younger halfa aimed a freeze ray at them, encasing them in ice up to their necks (wait, did Vlad just _defend_ him?). The ice began rapidly melting, and he cursed.  
"Language, Daniel." The teen swore again.  
"So what do you propose we do, fruitloop?"  
Plasmius lifted one eyebrow.  
" _We_? I have all intentions of getting out of here, as should you."  
"And leave them to destroy Amity? Hello? Have you _met_ me?"  
  
Vlad scoffed. "They'll be detransforming in a short while anyway, since you made them go full power. I suspect they won't even remember a thing when they do." He made the first steps to flee. Danny moved up to intercept him  
"Oh no you're not. You're the one who made this mess, you help me fix it."  
The older halfa gave a dry chuckle.  
"Ah, I'm afraid I won't be much of help. You see, I'm currently suffering from slight power loss." He pointed at the two ghosts, grabbed him by the collar and threw him away from another attack.  
"And don't lose focus on your surroundings", he chided.

  
"What's it to you? You've never been afraid of me getting roasted before this, why start worrying now?" ('Power loss?')  
  
Vlad's face was smoothed over by slightly humored, blank look.  
"I would never want you to be seriously injured, little badger. Dear Maddie would be so upset-" and he was interrupted again by the weatherman ghost.  
**"YOU! THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!"** He was shouting at Vlad again. With a final heave, he kicked off the remaining ice, and sent a fiery punch straight at the halfa in question. Who was still distracted (oh, the irony).  
  
'I am so going to regret this.' the teen thought to himself as he flew towards the man. 'Stupid, want-to-be-even, heroic me...'  
For the fourth time that day, he collided with his archenemy....  
And phased right through him.  
What?  
...What?

 

  
Time seemed to slow down at that moment (or maybe it actually did, Clockwork had done that once for kicks). He saw the fire phantom weatherman streched towards him, face twisted in a snarl and fist drawn back. Behind him, the Paulina ghost stood, angry and heartbroken, a ball of pink energy forming in her hands.  
'No time to get out of the way', he supposed. So, as if it were the most natural thing ever, he raised up one hand (slowly, because everything was still in slo-mo) and called a lightning bolt down out of the sky.  
  
Despite the ghosts themselves being made out of fire, their clothes weren't: they were still sopping wet. The electricity that hit them like a truck finished the job of drying them off, but not before shocking them into oblivion; the two crumpled to the ground, black rings travelling up their bodies as they were released from the transformation.  
  
  
  
He blinked. Lightning? That was... new. Now. Where did the other one go?  
Not finding him, he began to look around frantically. Where had he gone? He hadn't been intercepted by the storm and fried, right?  
He tried to get up, only to find himself much taller (shorter) than he was used to.  
He looked down at his hands. His right hand had a black glove on it. His left a white one.  
Red eyes widened, suddenly understanding.  
  
  
  
And then he who had, in a different timeline, been the terror of both Human and Ghost realms, the Ultimate Enemy, promptly broke down into hysterics.


	2. Choosing a Direction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I don't have a real plot etched out yet, just a bunch of scenes floating around in my head. I guess I'll make the story up as I go along :D. (Art belongs to me! :D)

A good fifteen minutes after abruptly ending the battle with a lightning bolt, Dan was still frozen in the same place. The rational voice(es) in the back of his head were telling him to get the hell out of there and find somewhere more sheltered or generally more suitable for a panic attack (especially since people had begun to edge their way back into the park), but he ignored them in favour of trying to get his breathing under control and make some sense out of the whirlwind of contrasting thoughts and emotions in his head.  
Placing the tips of his fingers on his chest, where the black and white of his suit met in a diagonal line, he dug in his nails and tried to pry himself apart.  
  
"Comeoncomeoncomeon... just _split_ already..."  
  
  
  
**"Time Out."**  
He jumped and whirled around to face the purple-cloaked ghost that had materialized out of thin air.  
  
"Clockwork!" He fumbled briefly with the thermos hooked onto his belt and threw it to the Time Lord. "Oh, thank the lords! Capture me before I go off the deep end!"  
Clockwork, who had caught the thermos with a faintly bemused expression, made a "calm down" sort of gesture with his free hand.  
"There is no need for that: the timeline you fear is no longer possible; you aren't going to go 'off the deep end' anytime soon, Dan. I would have already taken steps to prevent this if you had."  
  
Dan paused in his frantic flailing.  
"Ok. So. What is _this_ , then?"  
Clockwork gave a rare smile. "I have to say, out of all possible timelines, the one in which Daniel Fenton and Vladimir Masters successfully fused was the one I least expected. You have all of Danny's memories intact; do you remember Skulltech 9.9?"  
Dan frowned.  
"You mean that weird mix of Technus and Skulker in the bad future? I thought they were just piloting the same robot."  
"They fused: they combined their ectoplasm, along with their powers and weaponry. It was actually a fairly widespread battle tactic for ghosts a long time ago, because it allows a group of weaker ghosts to form a single, stronger entity.  
You are different from what Skulltech was, though: they were a partial fusion, achieved through desperation; their personalities remained separate. You are more... evenly mixed. And also more than just the sum of your parts. "  
  
The fusion groaned.  
"We're- I'm not stuck like this _forever_ though, right?"  
  
Clockwork actually laughed at that.  
"You say that as if it is a bad thing! Many ghosts would go to unspeakable lengths to form a perfect fusion. And no, it isn't permanent. Once your two halves feel that they can't be together anymore, they'll separate. It might take them a while to settle though, so be patient." The Time Lord tossed the thermos back.  
"I'll be taking my leave now. The timelines have been left unmonitored for too long."  
  
"Wait! What should I do now?"  
The blue ghost grinned, morphing into his child form. "That's up to you to decide, isn't it? Have fun existing! Also, if you want to know more, go find Ghost Writer. Ask nicely and I'm sure he'll be happy to help. **Time In** ". He disappeared.

Everyhing started moving again. Paulina and the weatherman stirred and groaned in a still-smoking heap nearby. Dan took one last look around and took flight, cape billowing behind him.

 

 

'The entire Fenton family would shoot me on sight, and Tucker and Sam would freak out if they got even a _glimpse_ of me. So what, I just wander around aimlessly until my halves _settle_ or whatever?' He complained internally. Not to mention, anyone that saw him would call the hunters. Which meant that he had to stay put somewhere hidden. Or wander around in the _middle of nowhere_. There was always Vlad's mansion, but he was in no mood to fly all the way to Wisconsin.  
  
The thought of Vlad made him pause. Right. Someone was bound to notice that the mayor had disappeared. Vlad usually left a clone in his place while he indulged in his less legal activities, but he had neglected to do so this time. Because of his _power loss_. Dan groaned again, remembering the stacks of paperwork that his senior half had left in his office.

And what about Danny? His parents might be airheads, especially his good for nothing fath - NOPE, he wasn't going to think about _that_ mess now - but even they would notice if their son didn't come home for a couple of days. He felt like bashing his head against a tree.

'All right. Clockwork told me to ask Ghost Writer for more information. So that's what I'm going to do.' Sneaking through a ghost portal in the ghost hunters' basement? Pshhh. Piece of cake.

And of course, (because clearly the universe hates halfas) that was the moment he flew right into a wall. And didn't phase through it.


	3. Break In

Jazz was stretched out on the couch, reading Freud's "The Fall of Icarus", when she heard a soft thump upstairs. Huh. Danny must have gotten back from patrol.  
Truthfully, she had been starting to worry: he usually returned an hour earlier.

When ten minutes later he had not yet appeared, the worry crept back. She set her book down, carefully marking the passage she had been reading, and got up.  
  
"Danny?" She called from the bottom of the stairs.  
No answer came; she marched up and knocked on his door.  
"Danny?" More softly, she added "Are you ok?" and opened his door.  
There was no one there. The windows were open, and the papers which had been on Danny's desk had scattered all over the floor, adding to the general mess of his room; the curtains were rustling in the soft breeze, tinted white by the moonlight. A soccer ball, which must've fallen off the dresser and made the noise, was still gently rolling across the floor. It was an eerie scene.  
Shivering, Jazz went to the windows and closed them, briefly wondering if she should pick up some of the mess on the floor, then shook her head, and stepped out of her brother's room. Leave it to him to tend to his pigsty.  
  
She was halfway down the stairs when she heard more thumps. She froze. Muffled cursing bled through the walls.  
Turning around, she padded softly up the stairs and burst through the door.

In the middle of the room, empty moments before, she now saw a giant cloaked figure; smoke rose from the ground on which it was crouched. As it turned around, Jazz felt her insides turn to ice: she knew those red eyes.  
  
"What are you doing here", she choked out. The phantom slowly stood up, and raised his hands.  
She stepped back and clenched her fists. No. She wasn't going down without a fight.  
_"What did you do to Danny"_ , she spat, eyes frantically scanning the room for a weapon.  
At these words, Danny's evil alternate self, who for some reason had been staring at her with something akin to horror, groaned and palmed his face.  
  
"Oh, butter brittle."

 

 

He had had a sort-of-somewhat plan. A half plan. A hemi-demi-semi plan. But it _would_ have worked, with a bit of luck.  
  
That was _before_ he had found out that his ghost powers were all out of whack. Currently, the only ability that he had no problem using was flight, although he had faced a slight conundrum when he had to change his wispy tail back into a pair of legs. It was like he had only just obtained his powers! (Which, in fact, was exactly what had happened.) Embarrassing. He supposed he could count himself lucky that no one had seem him fly into the wall like a retarded pigeon.  
  
Since most of his half-plan had revolved around him sneaking into the Fentons' lab invisibly and intangibly, he had promply tossed the idea in the metaphorical junkpile. But what other options did he have, really? The only reliable portal around was in that blasted basement. Danny wasn't one for long stakeouts, and neither was he, but he supposed the only thing he could do (apart from waiting for his fusion to wear off) was to break in at night. Jack and Maddie were out at a ghost hunting convention--they were going to be back the next morning--and he knew their house's weapon schematics like the back of his hand (he had helped with both the planning and the construction, after all).

 

 

The spectre deflector was turned off. Thank the stars for scatterbrains.

 

Jazz. How could he have forgotten about Jazz?  
"Danny?"  
He cursed softly. There wasn't anywhere in his room he could really hide, considering his size and the fact that his hair _glowed_ , _son of a biscuit eater_.  
  
Knocking. "Danny? Are you ok?"  
  
He snatched one of the many T-shirts lying on the floor and flattened himself against the ceiling, covering his head with the garment. An instant later, Jazz opened the door, walked into the room, and stopped right underneath him.  
He froze, afraid even to breathe.

  
A few eternal seconds later, she sighed, went to close the windows, and exited, shutting the door behind her; he exhaled.  
"That was TOO close" he muttered to himself.  
And then the T-shirt on his head caught fire, because of course it did. Forgetting his precarious situation, he stomped on it frantically, trying to put it out.  
The door slammed open.

 

Jazz was standing in the doorway, backlit from the stairwell light, and--was looking at him in terror.  
That was... that was _wrong_.  
  
"What are you doing here" she said flatly.  
He tried to make an unprovocative gesture with his hands, still standing in the charred remains of his T-shirt. The red haired girl backed up.  
_"What did you do to Danny"_

Dan made a noise in the back of his throat that probably sounded like a dying cat.  
"Oh, butter brittle." _Butter brittle?  
_  
The girl was coiled like a spring, ready to flee at the slightest provocation.  
"Wait, Jasmine--" _Jasmine?_ He just did _not_ call her that "-- _Jazz_ , I can explain."  
  
She did not relax.  
"You know that Clockwork wouldn't have left me free if he thought I posed a threat to anyone." He spoke calmly, hands still raised in a surrendering motion. "Please. Just listen."  
  
Jazz slowly unfroze and leaned against the stair railings, her expression still guarded.  
The fusion sat down cross-legged on the floor.  
  
"Um, yeah" he began sheepishly. "You might want to sit down for this..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dan has no control over his powers because he is a "new" halfa, just like both Danny and Vlad didn't know how to control their powers when they first cropped up. He'll learn a lot faster than the two of them, though :D.


	4. Going Human

About halfway through the explanation, Jazz was really feeling the need for a cup of tea and a nice lie-down. Not wanting to take Dan's suggestion and sit, though (because everyone knows that if an insane murderous sociopath suggest you do something, you emphatically _don't do it_ \-- even if said sociopath is sort-of your brother), she leaned against the wall, massaging her temples with one hand.

  
"Ok. Wait. To recapitulate, you" she said, pointing at the phantom, "are Danny and Vlad mashed together"--he made a disgusted noise at this, whether at her phrasing or the situation in general she didn't know-- "and you don't know how to get back to normal, but then you aren't going crazy, so that's pretty good, y'know, for the rest of us"  another noise  "and Clockwork told you to go to the Ghost Zone to ask the guy that made us all miserable on Christmas Eve --by the way, isn't he still in prison?-- for help, but your powers are backfiring all over the place. And you can summon lightning bolts now."  She glanced up at him.  
  
"Did I get all of that right?"  
  
He nodded, with a strangely puppy-like look of hope.

 

She sighed.  
"That's the most ridiculous story I've ever heard," his face fell, " _but_ I believe you. Somewhat. If you had wanted to fool me, you would have come up with something more believable."  
  
"I still want proof."  
  
He gaped at her.  
"How am I supposed to prove it to you? It's not like Clockwork's going to show up to confirm what I said just to make my life easier: you know the guy!"  
  
Jazz walked up to him, her manner cowing him a little despite his being a foot taller.  
  
"Become human."  
  
_"What?"_  
  
She placed her hands on her hips. "Well, according to you, you're made up of Danny and Vlad. Both of them are halfas, so, by all accounts, you should be a halfa too. It's simple logic!"  
"So if you want to convince me that you're _really_ a... a _fusion_ of them and not just their ghost parts, become human." Her expression suddenly darkened. "And don't try that creepy shapeshifting thing where you turn into Danny, or any other human for that matter. I'll know if you do."  
  
She stepped back and regarded him expectantly, eyebrows raised.  
  
"Ok, ok.  Fine."

  
Truthfully, he had no idea what would happen if he tried going human. Fusion was a ghost thing, after all. The best outcome was that he would split back into his two components. The worst? He really didn't want to consider it.  
So he focused his energy somewhere around his middle, like he remembered the other halfas doing, and concentrated.

 

  
Jazz stared as two silvery glowing rings appeared, travelling up the length of the phantom's body. She didn't know what she had been expecting, but it certainly wasn't the exact transformation she had seen Danny go through so many times before.

Standing in front of her now was a tall, broad shouldered, dark haired man, who looked like he could very well have been Danny's older brother; his face still had a pale greenish tinge to it, though, and despite everything, Jazz felt a sudden urge to fuss over him.  
"Are you feeling all right?"

  
"I think I'm going to be sick," he candidly replied, and threw up all over the carpet.

 

 

 

On the other side of town, another halfa was drifting down a grimy narrow sideroad.  
"Gotta... find... Danny..." she panted. Her arm began to melt into a formless hunk of ectoplasm, and she whimpered, trying to shape it back into something resembling a limb.  
"I just hope I can get to him before it's too late..."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dun dun dunnnn....


	5. Orange Boy

"Be _careful_. You still don't have the hang of your powers, and you're walking right into Walker's--pun not intended--prison! What if he figures out you're a halfa?"

Dan sighed exasperatedly. Jazz had been overbearingly concerned about him ever since he had gone human and proceded to spill Danny and Vlad's combined lunches on the floor; he'd had to reassure her over and over that it was a normal reaction. Probably.  
  
And now she was worried that the ghost jailer would find out that he was breaking the law by existing--which was actually a good cause for worry, but she needen't know that.  
  
(There was also a not insignificant part of him that revelled in Jazz's being scared _for_ him and not _of_ him--he squashed that feeling. _Not the time._ )

  
"I'll be _fine_. I'll be back before sunrise..."  
Jazz froze.  
  
"My parents. My _parents_. What do I say about Danny? Do I just tell them that you're--I mean he's--at a friend's house?"  
The halfa groaned. He really didn't want to be with Sam or Tucker, just like he wanted to avoid the Fenton couple at all costs. He didn't know how he would act around them.  
  
"Yeah. You'll have to make a more believable excuse if Sam and Tucker come around, though."  
  
"I'll deal with that problem when it happens." Jazz replied matter-of-factly.

 

 

   
His cell was filled with oranges.  
  
They were heaped on the cot, in the sink and on the floor, and were stacked so high a few piles in the back nearly touched the ceiling; the smell was strong enough to make his eyes water.  
  
The ghost himself was sitting in the middle of the floor (the only area devoid of citrus), busily squeezing juice into a barrel, with a pile of discarded peels--rather small in proportion to the quantity of fruit still in need of processing--nearby.  
  
 Dan cleared his throat.  
"Excuse me. I'm terribly sorry for interrupting, but might I have a minute? I'm only allowed a short visit."

The prisoner glanced up.  
"You've mistaken me for someone else. I don't know who you are."

"No, you're the one I asked for. What..." he gestured at the barrel.  
  
 Ghost Writer chuckled bitterly.  
  
"You know how it goes... when the afterlife gives you oranges--" he glanced down at the juicer  "--you make orange juice, I suppose. It's not like I have anything better to do. Care for some?"  
Dan took the proffered glass somewhat bemusedly.  
"Why?"  
"Walker." Ghost Writer deadpanned, as if that one name were the reason for all the misery in the world.  
Dan nodded sagely.  
"He always had a rotten sense of humour."  
  
The Writer sat up straighter.  
"While I don't particularly mind a break in the dreary confinement that is now my afterlife, why are you here?"  
  
The halfa sat down.  
"I need something from you. I'm here to offer an exchange: I am wealthy, enough that I can get Walker to agree to let me bail you out."  
The Writer's eyes narrowed.  
"What is it you want?"  
"It's not compulsory. I believe the severity of your punishment greatly outweighs the severity of your crime, so I would get you out even if I got nothing in return."

"Having said that, I admit your help would be... greatly appreciated."  
Ghost Writer eyed him suspiciously, as if searching for loopholes.

  
"What do you want."

  
Dan smirked.  
"Two things. I want some information about... certain subjects. The other..." his expression darkened slightly. "The other is that under no circumstances will you use any knowledge you might gain of me against me, or relay it to _anyone_ else, living or not. That is all."  
  
He smiled, expression clearing. "Of course, you don't have to do either. I'd be happy just to set you free, as long as you mind your own business afterwards. Agreed?"

  
The prisoner thought it over a while longer, then sighed.  
"I hate being in anybody's debt. Fine. Once I get out of here, my library will be open to you, and I will answer your questions to the best of my ability; I will never communicate any information about you. Beyond that I want nothing to do with you."

He stuck his hand through the prison bars, pale flame dancing on his palm.  
The phantom grinned.

 

"Deal."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel that Dan is leaning more towards Vlad's character in this chapter. He definitely channels his godfather-like personality when he strikes the deal with the Writer.  
> He's just as manipulative as Vlad, although he's much nicer and willing to provide a way out. (He wasn't bluffing when he said that he would set him free without anything in return- he just knew he probably wouldn't take up on that offer).  
> And Jazz. I love Jazz, she's my favourite human character in the series :D, and I just had to have her acting very sisterly to a rather confused (but secretly appreciative) Dan.  
> (I also like that she said 'when' and not 'if' when talking about Sam and Tucker showing up... she knows those two well)
> 
> Also, did I put in GF and Code Geass references? Why yes I did!


	6. Frozen

Maddie was tired. The hunter gathering had been exhausting: she had had to deal both with her husband's antics and their inventions going off unexpectedly, and she had driven on the way back from the convention, which had been in a different state. All she wanted to do was change out of her hazmat suit and crash into bed.  
  
The first clue she got that something was off was when, stepping out of the Fenton RV, she noticed that all the upstairs lights were on. At four in the morning.  
Then, on the front steps, she heard a sound that made her skin prickle with dread; it was faint but unmistakeable, and she hadn't heard it in years.

Jazz. Crying.

  
"Wha...?" Jack muttered, still half-asleep, as Maddie thrust the oversized bazooka she was carrying into his arms and kicked the door open.  
"Something's wrong."  
Jack was immediately awake.  
"Ghost?"  
"I don't know."  
  
They heard voices. A thump. And then someone screaming in pain.  
"Upstairs! Hurry!"  
  
The door to Danny's room was ajar, encased in a thick layer of ice. As they scrambled up the steps, the landing lit up with a flash of cold light, and a gust of chilly winter air blasted them along with a flurry of snowflakes.  
  
The scene they saw at the top of the stairs was out their worst nightmares.

Their daughter knelt hunched and sobbing in the middle of the room, elbow-deep in a writhing mass of ectoplasm.  
  
And towering over her was a... in that moment, the only word that they could think of to describe the _abomination_ that they were looking at was _monster_ , with green skin and pupil-less glowing blue eyes, steam rising from its open, fanged mouth. The room was lit, not by the bedroom lamp, but by the thing's _hair_ , which was flickering wildly, casting shadows that danced along the walls.  
  
Then the mass of ectoplasm heaved and _screamed_ , and Jazz wailed; there were angry red welts on her arms, as if she had been burned.     
The monster snarled and leaned in closer to the girl, eyes flashing, and another wave of freezing wind swept through the room.  
  
"GET AWAY FROM MY DAUGHTER, SCUM!" Maddie roared, aiming her ectogun at the thing.

  
Later, when she thought back to this moment her mind would go blank, because, as all eyes in the room turned to stare at her and the shot rang, her foot slipped on the icy floor, and her exhaustion-dimmed instincts failed her: the plasma blast shot straight towards Jazz.  
  
By pure luck, the monster, which had ducked to avoid the area she had intended to aim for, ended up shielding her with its own body, getting blasted instead.  
  
It howled with rage and grabbed the girl and the lump of ectoplasm.  
"NO!" Her husband yelled and fired at it with the bazooka. It swivelled around the room dodging their shots (how? the first blast should have incapacitated it!), and dove straight towards them with the force of a midwinter blizzard, slamming her and her husband against the wall and freezing them in place. They watched helplessly as the thing punched a hole in their living room floor, activated the ghost portal, and disappeared.  
  
  
Dragging their daughter away to god knows where. 

 

 

  
"Dan!" Jazz cried, squirming in the halfa's grip. "Dan! Snap out of it! You have to let me go back! My parents are going to disintegrate you if they find you now!"  
" **No they won't,** " he snarled. "I shorted out the portal. It won't be functional for a few hours at least."  
  
"Oh no..." she whispered. "They'll think I'm dead."

They flew for a while in silence. The furious blue glow gradually left the fusion's eyes, and his grip on her shirt eased.      
"They would've killed you," he muttered.             
"It was an accident."  
"You'd _still_ be _dead_."  
  
His left hand glowed icy blue again as he laid it against the lump of ectoplasm they were holding.        
"Will she be ok?"  
"I can keep her core active with my ice powers for now, but she's still destabilized. She's missing a part of DNA."  
Jazz felt like crying again. When she had found the poor girl, who looked exactly like a miniature female Danny, melting on her brother's bed half an hour ago, she had panicked and had rushed down to the lab to find something, anything, that might help. When Dan had shown up, she had held the little halfa still as the other froze the entire room solid to keep her from disintegrating further, and as a consequence her arms had gotten frostbitten.              
  
"Where are we going?"  
"Vlad's mansion."  
"Will that help her?"  
  
"He's got some cloning equipment in his secret labs there. The part of DNA she's missing is called 'mid-morph DNA'; it was supposed to be Danny's, originally, but you know how _that_ went..." he grimaced.

 

"I suppose mine will have to do."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a much darker chapter. Don't worry, fluff will be coming soon. But even I like a little angst now and then >:D  
> Also, Dan used his ice power on instinct, which is why he had so little control over it.  
> My headcanon is that Dani also has a cold core; since she's Danny's clone, it would make sense. Dan instead has two cores (ice and fire, one Danny's and one Vlad's), because I think that in ghost fusions, the only thing that doesn't mix are the cores, similar to how gemstones remain separate during fusion in Steven Universe.


	7. Upon Awakening

Her head felt like it was stuffed with raw wool; she had a distinct sensation of something whiteish and fuzzy-prickly pressing against the inside of her temples. It was very uncomfortable.  
She blinked; through the haze of pain, a combination of colours came into view.

Green and gold.

Vlad's mansion.  
  
Swearing quite creatively for someone her age, she jumped up, or at least tried to: the blanket wrapped around her legs and she crashed headfirst to the floor, ending up in a crumpled heap.    
  
"Could you please not? I just spent a good part of my day fixing you, you could at least go for the same amount of time without trying to commit suicide." The sardonic tone was familiar, although the voice wasn't.  
She realized, belatedly, that her head was now resting between two black leather shoes, and stared up at a man who seemed to be oozing exhaustion from every pore.   
  
"Who are you?"  
  
"Dan. And before you ask, we're at Vlad's mansion, and no, he isn't around right now and probably won't be for quite a while. Chill."  
  
"That didn't...really... answer my question," she slurred.          ..  
  
Her head thunked back to the floor, and she faintly heard the man -- Dan -- mutter, "Seriously?" before the fog closed in again. Vlad hadn't kidnapped her. Things were pretty ok in her book.      
  
She continued to drift as she was picked up, bundled in blankets and carried somewhere, picking up bits and pieces of conversation as she floated in and out of consciousness.  
  
  
"...awake now?"  
"... IV ... ...ecto dejecto."  
"...parents... not long ago..."

"Here?!" The sudden exclamation roused her. The two speakers quieted; fingers carded through her hair. Then the first one continued in a hushed tone.  
"...portal... crashed..."  
"couldn't handle it ... Vlad... saved us again.... something else?"  
"...to me... five hours at least.... break every speed limit between here and Amity."  
"I wouldn't be surprised if they showed up now."  
"I'll handle it. Get some sleep, you look terrible."

She felt herself being handed over to the other speaker.  
"Hello," said the warm voice. "I'm Jazz. Danny's sister. Do you remember me?"

She did, in a weird secondhand way.

"So, I've been reading these medical books, because I figured that after the fifteenth time that Danny came in with burns I should know how to treat them, you know, just in case -- did he ever tell you about that time when... Box Ghost... exploded inside the thing, and... frozen meatloaf makes for an awesome... but not actually a dog... this bandage here... ghosts... Danny... core... .... ....ice...  
...  
...         
are you still awake?"

  
...

 

  
Dan woke up, shivering, to what essentially was the Fentons trying to level the castle with sound alone. He tried to sit up, only to find that his stomach muscles had gone on strike--being tazed by a superweapon and subsequently having your DNA painfully extracted does that to a person--and had to roll off the bed to get out of it.  
There was a shimmering layer of frost covering the floor and the furniture. Danny's core was acting up again. Great.  
  
 He found the Fentons in the foyer tearfully embracing Jazz and talking animatedly; as he--rather stiffly--made his way down the stairs, they all turned to look at him.  
  
"Oh thankyouthankyou _thankyou_!!!" Blue and orange blurs crashed into him, and he was lifted off the floor in a hug. The hairs on his neck stood on end.  
"Wha...?" was his intelligent response, as he fought off the instinct to suplex whoever was cutting off his circulation.

"Jazz told us that you're the one who saved her!" Jack shouted in his ear, nearly crushing his ribs.   
"You have no idea how thankful we are that someone like you was around," Maddie added from where she was squished against his side. "How can we thank you?"     
  
He shot a pleading look at Jazz.   
  
"I was telling them how you shot the ice monster when it came out of a portal here."  
  
"Ah, yes. Well, it seemed to me that it had already been injured by a previous blast, so it didn't take much to chase it off," he explained, trying unobtrusively to free himself. "It's what anyone would have done."  
  
"Nonsense!" Jack said, shaking his head. "Not many people would have had the courage to stand up to that thing, Mr..." Maddie looked up at him expectantly.  
  
"Oh. It's Dan. Dan... Masters"  
  
Two distinct voices in the back of his head began cursing up a storm, and he had to restrain himself physically from doing the same. It wouldn't make a good impression.

  
"Masters, huh? I thought so. You look a lot like Vladdie back in his college years." Jack had stepped back, and was regarding him enquiringly.

  
Oh well. In for a penny, in for a pound.  
  
"He's my half brother. But I wouldn't be surprised if he never mentioned me, we weren't very close back then."  
  
"Oh" was all that Jack said, while staring at him like one would stare at an ancient artifact.  
"Is the V-man around? I'd like to say hi to him before we leave. Oh, and let us treat you to dinner! It's the least we can do!"

"I'm sorry, Vlad's not here.  Dinner would be great another day, but right now I can't. My daughter is sick, so I have to stay here to take care of her."

The voices in his head quieted. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Jazz's jaw dropping.  
  
  
.... _cheese puffs_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dan slipped up lol. Jazz totes didn't expect that.
> 
> And Dani remains blissfully unaware.
> 
> This was a chapter a little hard for me to write, mostly because of all the dialogue; it's very hard to convey everything you want to convey while keeping it interesting AND in character. X_X


	8. Consequences of Obsession

The Fentons left shortly after, Dan ushering them out as quickly as he politely could: having Jack and Maddie so close left him with a disgusting oily feeling in the pit of his stomach. It would've been so much easier if they had just been angry with him.

  
Instead of taking a long hot shower like he wanted (he was still cold), he went upstairs to check on Dani. Jazz called him shortly after.  
  
"Ok, so, update. They asked, so I told them that Danny was staying over at Sam's for the weekend, but might be there longer because of a really important group assignment," she whispered. He could hear the Fenton couple's voices in the background: they must be still on the road. "They didn't seem too worried, so you're probably set for a couple of days. Any longer and they'll get suspicious, though."  
"You should tell Sam then, in case they bump into her."  
"What _do_ I tell her, though?"  
Dan bit his lip.

"I don't think telling her or Tucker the truth would go down well. How about... Danny's training in the Far Frozen and won't be back for a week?"  
"That won't work. He would have told them, and they know that."  
He sighed.  
"Yeah, I know. Give me some time to think. Is there any time your parents aren't going to be in the house? I have to make it appear to Amity's general populace that their mayor hasn't gone AWOL, and I'd like the house to be empty of trigger-happy ghost hunters when I come through the portal."  
There was a pause as Jazz thought it over.      
"Well, you could come over now, of course. Or tomorrow afternoon; they'll be working on the Ecto-Skeleton 2.0 in the attic, and the sensors won't go off if you enter in your human form."

She snickered into the receiver.     
"Just a heads-up, but Mom was commenting on your choice of wardrobe. And that you seem 'kind of young' for a father."  
He glanced at his reflection in the window and facepalmed: the fusion process had made a mix-and-match of his two components' clothes, resulting in him having Danny's T-shirt and jeans and Vlad's suit jacket and shoes.   

"Couldn't you have said something _sooner_?" he complained. "They're probably thinking that I'm a member of some sort of biker gang that got a girl pregnant..."  
Jazz, the traitor, was still giggling.  
"You dug yourself into that hole, mister--" he heard Jack shout something in the background.  
"--uh oh. Igottagobye!" And she hung up.

 

 

  
"Does the guy have _anyhing_ that isn't a suit?" he muttered to himself, sifting through rows of identical long-sleeved white shirts while trying to remember if Vlad kept any casual clothes under lock and key somewhere. So far, he hadn't had any luck.

  
"...Dan?"  
He jumped a foot in the air, freezing everything within a two-metre radius.

Dani was floating in the doorway, a slightly nervous look on her face.

"I wanted to thank you" she began, a little hesitantly, "y'know, for saving me and... yeah. And Jazz too, even if she isn't here..." She fidgeted.

  
He sighed.  
"You can leave, you know. I understand why you wouldn't want to stay here any longer than necessary. And don't worry about Vlad: as long as I'm here, he won't bother you."  
  
Instead of brightening, her expression saddened.  
  
"I'm sorry." She said quietly. "I thought I was the only one, but you're one too, aren't you."  
His brows furrowed.  
"What?"  
She gazed at the floor.  
"You know. One of _his_ cloning experiments. A _failure_. Like me."

Oh.  
  
Oh no.  
  
She chuckled humorlessly.          
"I mean, come on! He called you _Dan_? How messed up is that... talk about a lack of imagination..."  
  
He hurriedly shook his head.  
"No, no! I'm not a clone, I'm... something else. I suppose I am related to the fruitloop, though...             
  
...if it makes you feel better, Vlad never intended to create me either."

Dani stared at him, wide eyed, before bursting into fits of laughter.  
"You... y-you called him a... a...!" She fell to the floor with a thump, still howling, and Dan, despite his best efforts, felt his own mouth quirk into a smile.

 

  
Insulting himself had never felt so liberating.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dan is kind of like Cotton Candy Garnet (Garnet when she was first formed). At least he's simmetrical (in his human form anyway...)  
> Poor Dani. Poor Dan too, come to think of it. None of this mess is really his fault...at least he has Jazz to help him out :D


	9. Curruption and Treachery

"I'm coming with you."  
"Why? I won't be doing anything interesting, even from my point of view."

Dani crossed her arms.  
"You _just said_ that Vlad woudn't bother me as long as you're around; what's to stop him from coming back when you're not here? I am _not_ staying in this stupid place all by myself."  
  
"That's not what I..." He groaned (he seemed to be doing a lot of that lately), trying to shut a briefcase crammed with documents.  
"...ok! Fine! There will be a lot of sneaking around and boring stuff, though" he warned.

"Sneaking around isn't boring" she replied. "Who we hiding from?"

"...basically everyone."  
"Cool."

 

 

  
There was a flashy fight going on in front of the Town Hall, Skulker yelling something about obligations and pelts while exchanging blows with the Red Huntress. Dan was half-tempted to make ice sculptures out of both of them, but he had more important things to do.    
Also, they were proving to be a great distraction.         

"Can't we just go in as ghosts?"  
"The Huntress has ghost sensing equipment, so better be safe than sorry. And besides, sneaking in isn't very exciting if you can just stroll around invisibly, is it?"  
It was also true that he _couldn't_ turn invisible; even his _ghost sense_ was all wonky, as he had found out when Skulker had appeared. He hadn't even noticed the two pale blue wisps--he was pretty sure they were supposed to be red--that had drifted out from his nostrils, being alerted instead by Dani's sense going off.            
  
She huffed. Dan took that as agreement.  
(He wondered if he was corrupting her by turning forced entry into a glorified game of hide-and-seek.)    
"Feeling up to a crash course in forgery?"  
(Yeah, he was _definitely_ corrupting her.)

 

"'Petition to endow parking meters with birdbaths'" she read, stretched out on the mayor's desk some thirty minutes later. "Hey, Dan, can I OK this?"     
"Sure."  
"Awesome." She uncapped a magenta marker with her teeth and proceeded to trace Vlad's signature with it. Dan rolled his eyes.

"Not that I'm complaining, but why are we doing this again?"  
"Vlad has disappeared, so we have to make sure that no one gets suspicious when they see he isn't getting his work done. He's Amity's mayor, you know."  
"Ah" she said, glancing at him. "And might you have anything to do with his... disappearance?"  
"I might," he hedged, not meeting her eyes.  
Dani shrugged and picked up another document. "Whatever, you can keep your secrets. 'Petition for establishing an annual coloured chalk celebration'?"

As he opened his mouth to answer, Skulker came crashing in through a window and slammed into the opposite wall; Dani transformed at once and phased through the desk.       
Dan stared enviously at the spot where she had disappeared before gathering up the evidence of their illicit activities and rushing out of the room in pursuit. He heard the Huntress shout something, but paid no attention: right now, he was a civilian. And civilians have no obligation to stay within firing range.

 

 

 

There had been more ghost-related incidents than usual in the last couple of days; on the other hand, the ghost boy hadn't been seen around either so, all in all, it was a decent trade-off.          
Her current situation was making her rethink that statement: the spectre she was fighting had some sort of hunting/collecting obsession, and kept going on about skins and severed heads on pikes. Also, she was about 80% sure that it was hitting on her. Ew.

  
Her frustration was probably to blame when she punched the ghost harder than necessary. 

It ended up crashing into her Boss's office.          
  
She swore and flew down after it, frantically devising a suitable apology (she didn't think he would be _too_ angry, given his agreeable disposition, but still).          
She made it to the window just in time to see the mayor rush out.    
"Mr. Masters...!" she called, but he didn't turn around or otherwise acknowledge her, and slammed the door behind him. She winced.  
The robotic ghost, in the meantime, had managed to free itself from the impression it had made in the wall and slid to the floor, sparks flying from damaged wires in its joints.      

"Now that's what I call a good fight!" It laughed uproariously. "Say, mind going hunting sometime? Just you and me, following the scent of fear in the dead of the--" Yeah, no.  
She gagged and bound it before it could continue, and rushed out to morph out of her hunting gear and find her boss. There were lots of glass shards strewn in his office. Maybe he had been hurt?  
  
The ghost sensor beeped in her pocket, and she swore again. _Another_ ghost? Really?  
She rushed downstairs, keeping an eye out for both her boss and the new ghost. As she hurtled around a curner, she slammed into something quite solid that had been moving in the opposite direction, and would have fallen backwards if an arm hadn't reached out and grabbed her shoulder.

"Oh, I'm so sorry, thank you, Mr... _Mr. Masters_?!"  
She stared up.  
 

  
No.  
This man... this man definitely _wasn't_ her boss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Credit for the petitions goes to my mom.  
> My brain wasn't coming up with anything, so I just asked her:  
> "Hey, what really stupid sounding petitions can you come up with?" and she gave me birdbaths on parking metres and Coloured Chalk Appreciation Day (emphasis on coloured).
> 
> She's also my beta reader, so I'm really thankful for her.
> 
> Dani is getting her petty revenge wherever she can.  
> "Of course it's magenta, it matches his powers so well!"  
> And Dan just rolls with it XD.
> 
> This chapter was SO HARD. I don't even know WHY it was so hard, it just was.


	10. He Who Fights Monsters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I actually wrote this chapter once, reread it, decided I didn't like it and rewrote the whole dang thing. Which is why this took me so long. Also, angst.
> 
> Art made by me :)

He wasn't her boss--he had black hair, for goodness' sake--but she could see how, at first glance, she had thought he was: they had the same confident bearing, the same dark shadows under their eyes. There was something else about him that struck her as familiar, but she couldn't put her finger on what.  
  
"...Have we met?"  
The man narrowed his eyes.  
"No, we haven't. What are you doing here? The offices closed an hour ago. How did you even get to this floor?"  
  
She remembered that she wasn't in her suit. _Why_ had she retransformed again?  
"But you... you were in my boss's office! Why were _you_ there?"  
  
"You still haven't told me what a little girl is doing here." A pause. "Well?"  
  
"He's my boss! He needs to know if strangers are in his office! I'm going to inform him of this right now!"  
"It's none of your business, really" he replied, annoyed, "but if you must know, the mayor's my half brother. And he wouldn't thank you for snooping around in his office after hours. Now get out."  
  
Oh, _that_ was why they looked so similar.  
...And he was herding her towards the exit.  
  
"No, wait..." there was a _ghost_ lurking around somewhere, she needed to get to it! "There's a ghost upstairs!"  
"Yes, I know, I saw him. An even better reason for you to be away from here", and he unceremoniously pushed her out, locking the door behind him.

  
She stood there for a few seconds before embarassment hit: she had just met her boss's half brother. Who probably now thought of her as the rudest, nosiest brat ever. She thunked her head on the wall.  
  
"Worst. First Impression. Of All Time," she groaned.

  
Wait.  
How had he known that she had been inside the mayor's office?

 

 

  
Alone in the corridor, Dan turned around and knocked on one of the walls.  
"Dani?" He called softly. No answer.  
  
He sighed and started walking back. He should probably go trap Skulker in a thermos. And make sure the paperwork wasn't damaged...

 

The whole incident had him running quite a bit behind schedule, so he was irritated but unsurprised to see the Fenton RV parked in front of their house. He decided to phone Jazz.  
  
"I didn't think you'd call so soon!" she whispered in the receiver.  
"Is this a bad time?"  
" _Yes_. Where are you right now?"  
"...in front of your house," he replied drily.  
She let out a string of curses.

"Who's on the phone?" he heard a familiar voice ask in the background, and realized her source of unease. Pop tarts. Not _them_. He quickly hung up and left, keeping himself hidden in the lengthening shadows of the buildings.

 

 

Despite its impressive skyline, Amity Park wasn't a big town; with the sun setting and nowhere really to go, Dan found himself strolling down a little dirt road leading away from anything man-made. It ended on a steep cliff, where a middle-aged man was sitting and gazing at the horizon.

 

He leaned over the edge and stared into the darkness.  
  
Countless eyes stared right back.  
  
"AAAAAAAAAAARGHH!!!" he yelled, stumbling back and tripping over a stone. " _What the fudge is THAT?!_ "

"So you've killed someone too."

  
He flinched, and turned to look at the man beside him.  
"It's a gate. A gate that leads to a horrible place known as the Unworld. I have no idea why it hasn't been boarded shut already. I guess no one believes the stories, even in this supernatural-infested town."  
  
"Stories?" The halfa asked curiously, despite feeling his ghost side champing at the bit to get out of there.  
The other sighed.  
  
"Anyone who looks into the abyss sees the eyes of everyone they've killed staring back at them. It's guilt. A void. That's what That Place feeds off of."  
He lowered his gaze, eyes glazing over.  
  
"I was driving home drunk once, and hit a van full of people; a whole family died because of me. I can see them down there to this day." He gestured at the pit.

  
Dan looked back at the eyes. There were _thousands_ of them.  
  
'But I've never killed anyone', he wanted to say: Vlad was many things, but he wasn't a _murderer_ ; and Danny had been always, _always_ careful to keep bystanders safe and out of danger, no matter what--

Danny.  
He was caught in the gaze of strikingly blue eyes, so similar to his own, and suddenly felt very, very sick.

  
"I think... I think I'm going to go now", he said thickly, and walked away.  
The other watched him leave in silence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EDIT!!: After re-watching DP after ages of not seeing it, I realized that Valerie's suit is now linked to her (somehow) after her fight with Technus, so Dan couldn't possibly tamper with it. I changed that but now I have to modify my plot a little (urgh). The things I do for canon...
> 
> Does anyone know the entire saying? Because that's exactly what happened to Danny in TUE.
> 
> Fun Fact: the Unworld is actually canon (it's a sort of nightmarish limbo world between the GZ and the HZ), although it never really appears in the show. Of course, since we know so little about it, I decided to put a bunch of headcanons into it. So the Gate is like, 10% canon and 90% my invention (it only appears once more in my story though).


	11. Desperate Measures

She had just walked in when Sam and Tucker came knocking at the front door. She herded them upstairs before her parents could see who it was.    
  
"Hi Jazz, we were wondering... what the heck happened to your living room?!" She shushed them and pushed them into her bedroom, closing the door behind her, and then slumped against it.            
  
"Jazz? You ok?" Tucker asked hesitantly. She sighed.  
"Yeah, just... tired. I suppose you came here to ask about Danny, right?"  
"Yeah." Sam nodded. "It's been two days. What happened to him?"

She hadn't come up with a suitable story yet, and besides, she didn't feel like lying to them: they had her brother's best interests at heart. But...  
  
"I'm sorry. I really can't tell you. Don't worry!" she waved her hands as she saw their expressions. "He's safe, I promise. But he asked me not to tell _anyone_ , even you. Just trust me, ok?"      
  
The two glanced at each other.  
  
"Does it have anything to do with the new addition to your floor downstairs?" Sam asked shrewdly.  
  
"In a manner of speaking..." she mumbled. "By the way, I told my parents that Danny's staying over at your place, Sam--"  
  
Her cellphone rang. She glanced at the number and swore internally.  
"Sorry, I have to take this call. I'll be back in a minute, ok?"  
  
She stepped outside and hit the reply button.  
  
"I didn't think you'd call so soon!" she hissed into the receiver.  
"Is this a bad time?"  
" _Yes_." Two heads peeked around the corner. "Where are you now?"  
  
"... in front of your house."  
She cursed again and rushed to the window looking out on the street; luckily, he hadn't meant that literally.  
  
"Who's on the phone?" Tucker asked from behind her, and the call was suddenly cut off.

"Just somebody I know," she replied, slightly miffed, as she pocketed the device. "Anyway, can you confirm that if you run into them?"   
  
The goth girl nodded.           
"Ok. But if we don't see Danny for another two days, you're gonna tell us _everything_. All right?"  
  
She smiled tiredly.  
"Yeah. That's fair."

 

 

  
She tried calling him back next morning, after events had settled down, but was directed to voicemail every time. He hadn't sounded that urgent; maybe he had found some other place to stay? She hoped so, anyway: a freak storm had passed over Amity late the night before, and it was still drizzling lightly outside.  
  
Taking advantage of her parents having locked themselves in the attic to tinker with their new project, she went down to the lab and shut off the alarms.

 

A split second later, the portal activated in a flash of green light and a small, distraught ghost shot through it; she barely had the time to register his odd choice of head covering before he barreled into her and started shaking her shoulders, sobbing uncontrollably.  
  
"Oh, thank the Lords, it's you! Please, please, _please_ help us! He's gonna _level our haunt_ at this rate, don'tcha know!?"

"...Know what? Who?" she asked, her brain still trying to process the 'green ghost with a cheese hat clinging to my shirt' thing.

"Him! The half-and-half one! Came in an hour ago and blasted the left tower to smithereens, he did, must've frozen every single vat of milk in the mansion!"  
"Dan?" Jazz asked bewilderedly, although she was already turning around to search for the keys to the Speeder.  
"Yes, him! He's destroying our lair! And himself too, I suppose--"

  
She spun around.  
" _Destroy_ himself? What's he _doing_?"  
  
The little ghost drooped.  
"We don't know, miss, we've never seen him like that before! Kept ranting about some Clockwork guy...." he trailed off.  
"...Please, stop him. We liked him a lot more than the other one, at least before he went bonkers."                 
  
She leapt into the Spectre Speeder and revved the engines.

"All right. How do I get to your lair?"  
"You've been there before, miss. We're the Wisconsin Dairy King, don'tcha know?" the other replied, appearing in the seat next to her and puffing out his chest proudly.  
"He's at Vlad's mansion??!! How did he even... never mind," she muttered, activating the portal again and diving into the swirling green light. She hoped that her parents would remain occupied in the attic for a while: they really didn't need two heart attacks in a row.

 

 

  
The mansion looked like it had been through an air raid. There were a dozen police cars parked outside the front gate, sirens blaring, and as she watched through a cracked window she saw what little remained of the ruined tower topple over in a cloud of dust and ice shards. A small group of people (the household staff, judging by their outfits) were being led to a safer area across the front lawn.        
There were also people in white suits scattered here and there on the grounds. She narrowed her eyes.   

Dan. He hadn't been in the lab when she arrived (although he had undoubtedly been there earlier, given the state in which she had found it). She needed to locate him, and _fast_.     
  
"Dairy King, could you please go distract the police? Nothing good's going to happen if they find him now..." The ghost nodded and disappeared. "...watch out for the Guys in White!"  
  
She unzipped her school bag. "I hope this works," she muttered, and threw the BOOmerang down the corridor; it flew a couple metres before it did a 180, just barely missing her ear as it passed by her head, and zoomed up the stairs to the bedrooms.

 

She found it knocking against a big, ornate double door. Vlad's room, maybe?

There was a frantic scratching coming from the other side, and when she cracked open the heavy wooden slab and peered in, something white and furry shot out like a grape slipping its skin, brushing against her ankles as it scampered away.           
She stepped inside and caught the BOOmerang (now circling aimlessly around the seemingly empty room), walked to the bed and poked her face in the gap between floor and mattress.          

  
A pair of faintly glowing red eyes glanced at her miserably.      
  
"How did you even fit yourself in there..." she muttered as she crawled underneath the bed to join him; the dark lump that was the halfa shivered and pressed itself against the wall away from her.  
  
"Listen," she began, "I don't know how you got here or what happened, but we have to leave now! The police are gonna search the place, and I think I saw some of the GIW--" Dan jerked at that. Good. At least he was responding.

She took a hold of his cape and tried to drag him out.        
"Ooof, you're heavy. C'mon big guy, it's time to go! Up and at'em!"  
  
The fusion slowly crept out and, with evident effort, stood upright. His flame hair was burning so low that it was reminiscent of a buzz cut, and, at any other situation, Jazz would have giggled.     
She grabbed his arm and tugged him towards the door and to the secret entrance behind the painting; he followed listlessly, swaying with every step. 

The Dairy King was taking his role as a distraction to heart--she could hear the tolling of bells and mooing coming from the courtyard, and was that cream cheese splattered on the window pane? she _really_ didn't want to know--and seemed to be handling things fine by himself, so she didn't feel too bad for leaving him alone against the GIW. She'd send him a tub of ice-cream or something later. 

"Wait," Dan rasped as they were about to take off. "Destroy the lab. I want there to be zero chances of them finding the ghost stuff."  
She nodded curtly and blasted the room with the Speeder's ectoguns. Once they had crossed into the Ghost Zone, the halfa leaned out of the window and shot a beam of golden energy at the football.   
  
It exploded.  
  
"Huh..." he said, eyes unfocused. "Wonder if it's as bad on the other side as that time Vlad forgot to change the ec... the ecto filtrator..." his head lolled back on the headrest.  
  
"For heaven's sake, Dan, turn back human! You don't have the energy to keep the transformation up!"  
  
"Can't... thass kinda the idea, y'see..."  
  
"What? Why?"  
  
He opened one eye.

"If I drain my cores enough, I'll make myself incapable of using any ghost power. Including fusion."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a very long chapter.. it was originally supposed to be serious, but how serious can you get if the Dairy King's involved?
> 
> Dan's ecto blasts are yellowish-white, because that's what green and red/magenta light make when combined. Pretty cool, right? 
> 
> And yes, that was Maddie. The poor, traumatized kitty.


	12. An Encounter

Jazz swerved, nearly crashing into a door.  
"You did all of this trying to _unfuse_? I thought Clockwork said it would wear off eventually!"

Dan snorted.  
"Yeah. Said that my halves would separate if they 'felt like they couldn't be together anymore', or what-the-fig-ever. Well, guess what. _It. Didn't. Happen._ "  
"Why don't you want to stay fused anymore?" she wondered. "You seemed fairly ok with it until... well... until this morning, I guess. What changed?"

 

"I guess I just realized how dangerous it is for me to exist," came his quiet reply.

She pressed her foot on the brake, stopping them in the middle of nowhere, and turned around to face him fully.  
"Dan." She enounced every word. "You aren't Dark Danny."  
  
"No, I'm not," he agreed. "But what if another accident happens?" he asked her. "What if someone messes around with the Ghost Gauntlets? I already took care of the old ones, took the tower out along with them by accident--but their blueprints are still in the Axion Labs' database! Heck, even the _Ghost Catcher_ could bring about the destruction of the world!"  
  
His eyes flashed red.  
"And even if none of these things happen, look at what I've _already_ done, in _less than three days_!! I wrecked your home, destroyed Vlad's mansion, changed the weather patterns everywhere, undoubtedly caused distress for hundreds of people including _mo_ \--" he cut himself off, chest rising and falling rapidly.  
  
  
"I hurt you, too," he continued after a while, gesturing at her wrists where bandages were visible under her shirt sleeves. "I didn't mean to do any of that, but I still did. I'm a walking disaster."  
He slid down in the seat and closed his eyes.  
  
Jazz shook her head.  
"No, you aren't: half those things you did to help Dani, remember? And you _didn't_ mean to cause any trouble. There has to be another way for you to unfuse."  
"Short of sawing myself in half, I've already tried everything else that I could think of."  
A thought crossed her mind.  
  
"Did you go ask that Ghost Writer guy yet? Maybe he can figure something out."  
His face became thoughtful. His hair, which had flared during his outburst, had died down to barely more than coals; her stomach clenched.  
  
"Dan, _please_ change back. You haven't shown any sign of splitting yet, and you're hurting yourself."  
  
"And then what? I can't stay like this, Jazz."  
"That's easy. You come with me, _rest_ , and then go find that ghost. If you still don't have a solution afterwards, you can try doing this. But only at last resort, ok?"

"Yeah, because your parents would be totally down with having a stranger living in their house."  
"They would, actually."  
He slumped further.  
"...yeah, I know."

 He collapsed limply against the side of their transport. Silver rings formed and, in a flash of dim gray light, he was human.

 

  
The Red Huntress flew down a street in the residential area of Elmerton (ghosts seemed to have a liking for desolation and despair), thinking about the person she had met the day before.  
Her boss's 'half brother'.  
How had he known that she had been in the mayor's office? She'd been wearing her battle suit the whole time! Had he just made an assumption?  
Also, she was _sure_ they had met somewhere before, despite his denial...  
"Stop being paranoid, Valerie," she muttered to herself.

A spot of red and blue amidst the dreary colours of the slums caught her attention.  
She stopped, and stared.

"I'm having deja vu's everywhere."

A little girl, about nine years old, stood near a grocery store, eyeing the crates of fruit with longing. The ghost detector beeped; as Valerie's eyes darted around, looking for the source, she heard the owner shout.  
"Hey, you! Lemme see your hands!"

The girl backed away, raising her arms in surrender, and escaped in a back alley.  
"What a jerk! She wasn't even touching the--"  
She pulled out two apples from nowhere.  
'...wow, she's good. I didn't even see her pocket those,' she thought. 'Poor kid, I know where she's coming from.'

Glancing back at the device on her forearm, which still inexplicably claimed there was a ghost in the vicinity, she tapped on the display and grumbled.  
She floated down to the ground, nose still buried in her screen; the little thief in the alley squeaked upon seeing her and dropped what was left of the fruit, fleeing into an abandoned apartment building.  
  
"Wait, don't go there! It could be dangerous!" Valerie shouted, rushing after her; she busted the door open, and shone her lights on the walls.  
"Don't worry, I won't turn you in to the police! I just want to help--"  
  
One of the floorboards gave under her.  
  
Someone shouted; the room was lit by a flash of white light, and, in that split second of weightlessness before a plunge, a body slammed into her ( _again_ , her brain supplied sarcastically) and she fell through the wall-- _through??_ \--as the derelict building came down at her heels.  
  
She tumbled to the ground in a daze. The ghost detectors were screaming mortal peril all around her, but she stayed still, unable to detatch her eyes from the black and white design that was now occupying her entire field of vision.  
  
"Hehe, oops? I should probably go now..." and the familiar logo disappeared, along with the ghost that had been three inches from her neck and yet hadn't left her with a single scratch.

 

"What the hell just happened."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After rewatching a couple episodes of DP after years of not seeing them, I went back and edited a few things because they just wouldn't work. Dan doesn't mess with Valerie's suit, because at this point it's basically part of her thanks to Technus (I had forgotten that detail..), so I rewrote the scene to suit that, and I had to change a part of this chapter and some of the next chapter too (in my head. I haven't written it yet)  
> I've been dreading that conversation since the third chapter of this fic (once I had an actual plot outlined...).  
> I hope I did the characters justice.


	13. Family Reunion

It was while parking the Speeder that Jazz became aware of a new problem: Dan, in his semi-catatonic state, was impossible to move. She might have just left him there to sleep (or be unconscious) under other circumstances, but he had started to freeze over some time before and his body now bore a distinct resemblance to a copse. It was no where near to Danny's sub-zero core overload level, but she still had to wonder _why_ : his core(s?) had to be as close to overloading as two coats of paint on Proxima Centauri. In any case, it was better to "explain" the situation to her parents now than wait, which meant dragging the halfa's dead weight upstairs. Somehow.

...she'd never have guessed that one day she'd use the Fenton Peeler like that.

 

 

Schooling her expression into an acceptable look of panic, she rushed up to the attic and pounded on the door.  
"Mom! Dad! You've gotta come down _right now_! Vlad's brother's here--" the door burst open.  
  
"Did I hear something about the V-man?"  
"--he's been attacked by the ice monster!"  
"Huh?" " _What?!_ "  
A scuffle followed as Maddie tried to push past her husband blocking the doorway, while Jazz made a show of gesturing and babbling frantically. Which wasn't really that hard. Huh. Maybe she _was_ panicking a little.

And then they were all rushing down the stairs.  
"It must've come back for revenge or something! It destroyed the mansion and froze everyhing, he says he just barely managed to escape in a helicopter--"  
"Any injuries? Signs of overshadowing? Hypothermia?"  
"--Really embarassing hot-dog shaped rashes?"  
"Uh, maybe the last one..."  
" _Really_?"  
"No! I meant the hypothermia--"  
"-- _Oh my god, is he dead_?"

  
The fusion disproved that idea by rolling over and nearly face planting the floor (probably because of the racket they were making); Jack saved his nose by catching him by his jacket collar and setting him upright on the couch, and was rewarded with a slightly disoriented scowl.  
  
Maddie came rushing back from the kitchen with a first-aid kit.  
"We have a case of ectoplasm-induced hypothermia: now diagnosing the severity." She shone a light in his eyes, and when he opened his mouth to protest she stuck a thermometer in it and shut his jaw with her other hand.  
  
"Could you get me the ecto-scanner, dear? I want to check for traces of contamination." _Crud_.  
"Um, mom? Wouldn't he have tripped the alarms if he had any ghost residue on him?"  
The Fenton huntress pondered that for a while before smiling.  
"Oh, you're right! Silly me. Well, could you go make some hot chocolate then? Make some for all of us, while you're at it."

  
She breathed a sigh of relief and walked into the kitchen, trying not to laugh: danger of discovery aside, the whole scene was pretty funny. Dan was definitely hating every second of it.  
" _Sixty-seven degrees_?"  
...she shouldn't be finding it as funny as she was. Ah, whatever. She muffled her giggles in her sleeve.

  
And then she heard her father ask "Where's your daughter?" in a jovial tone, and her grin froze. Oh no. She _knew_ she had forgotten something...

 

 

He had somehow passed from horizontal and fairly contented to upright and annoyed in less than five seconds. There was _noise_. _Why_. And regrettably, the noise was coming from a family of ghost hunters, so he couldn't just blast them into silence without being forever silenced in return. He settled with sending glares that would have made your average sentient being cry (which of course went right over the Fenton's heads--he was pretty sure he heard Jazz _giggling_ ), and tried not to twitch when Jack dumped every blanket in the house on him while chattering on about trivialities.  
  
"...and boy, did it taste bad! Alicia didn't seem to think so though. Man, people in Arkansas sure have strange tastes, Danny-boy! Wait, I already have one Danny-boy. How about Dan-the-man? Hey, it rhymes! Say, where's your daughter?"

Something crashed in the kitchen; Maddie looked up from where she was checking the pulse oximeter.  
"Oh yes, I've been meaning to ask! Her illness didn't get worse after the attack, did it? Is she staying with someone else now? Was she hurt?"  
Jazz peeked out behind them, looking a lot like a deer in the headlights.  
  
"Well, actually--"  
He was saved from having to answer by the front door swinging open with a bang.

  
"JAZZ! I've got this crazy lady on my tail and my hair became _weird_ , _please_ tell me Dan's he..."

 

 

'At least she had the sense to enter a ghost hunter residence in human form,' was probably his last coherent thought before he sank back under.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh boy. It's been a while, I know. I've been very busy with University lately, and I've been too tired in the evenings to do anything except read fanfiction. The chapters will probably be slower in coming for a while, but this isn't a hiatus!  
> Anyway, new chapter. Everyone happily (or not so happily) together, even if some of them don't know it! Also, Dani's hair... hehehe... I'm gonna have fun with that.


	14. Sins of the Father

"What--"  
Jazz rushed towards her while making a silencing gesture.  
"Later," she mouthed. Dani observed her with a frown before nodding imperceptibly.  
  
"Ellie!" The redhead said out loud. "How did you get here all on your own? Your _dad_ \--" she pointedly glanced at the couch "--is resting right now, shouldn't you be in bed too, after what happened?"  
  
The girl, bless her heart, seemed to have cought on with the bluff, although her eyebrows had become one with her hairline at the mention of the d-word.  
"But _Jazz_ ," she whined, "No one would tell me anything! Everyone kept rushing back and forth everywhere and my chest hurt and now I've got some scary lady chasing me and yelling something about a ghost and mfffff..."  
Whatever else she was planning to spout got muffled as the girl burrowed her face into Jazz's shirt. Then one eye resurfaced and _winked_.  
  
A choking sound clued them in that the Fentons had recovered from their state of shock; Maddie jumped up from the couch and, making a sound not unlike an oversized mosquito, bounced towards them excitedly.  
"OH! _Oh my gosh_ , you look so much like him, it's adorable! I _need_ a picture with you two together--"  
"MOM!" Jazz cut in, because Dani was tugging on her sleeve in an increasingly urgent way, "Ellie has just gone through a very traumatic experience, so can we leave the socializing for tomorrow? I'll take her up to Danny's room to get some rest."  
"Of course, of course. I'll go get the hot chocolate..."

  
And that, of course, was when the Red Huntress chose to make an appearance, nearly blasting the door straight off its hinges.  
  
  
"Everybody, _back away_ from that girl! It's a ghost, don't be fooled by its disguise!"  
  
Jazz heard Dan moan into his topmost conforter something which might have been "Not _nooooowwww_ ", followed by a phrase containing the word 'pickles', but she was too preoccupied by the new gleam in her parents' eyes as they, in unison, turned to look at the girl partially hidden behind her, to really notice.

The Huntress seemed to hear, though, judging by how fast her head snapped towards him and how her posture seemed to straighten. _Huh. Wonder what that's all about._

Jazz unconsciously positioned herself in a way that would make the little halfa less visible, but Maddie whipped out the Fenton Finder from seemingly nowhere, and the redhead suddenly had a vision of Wulf crashing through a china shop, in slow motion. _Oh fu_ \--

_"There are ghosts in the vicinity. In full view. You would have to be some sort of moron to not notice them--"_

"GHOOOOST!" Jack yelled, materializing an ecto-fishing net from hammerspace.

 

 

  
In the ensuing confusion, no one noticed Dan pull the mountain of covers off of himself and head to the kitchen with a decidedly long-suffering expression. As he proceded to dump half a cup of sugar and three aspirins into his mug of hot chocolate, he listened to the noise of the Fentons and the Huntress chase Dani all over the house. She had gone ghost the minute she had been outed--and what a chocolate flambé cake that was--and was phasing through walls in the Emergency Ops Center, trying to confuse her signal with all the surrounding ectoplasmic technologies; the Fentons were being a little less trigger-happy that usual, on account of the many explodable things stored up there, so she had that advantage. The Red Huntress had no such qualms, of course: a resounding boom shook the building as several cans of hypercharged Speeder fuel took flight, rocketing away into the evening sky, and his temples throbbed. Spirits, he was _tired_.

  
As he drank the concoction (and wrinkled his nose at the taste), he wondered why he wasn't feeling more... _more_ at the moment. He liked Dani. He really did. It was kind of how Vlad had felt about Danny, in the beginning, but in a more detatched way. Which was a little creepy, honestly, but he also honestly didn't care. The problem was whether or not he should act on this... weird secondhand parental impulse thing, because he had technically absolved himself from guilt the minute he had stabilized her genetic code. So he silenced the part of his mind (which for some reason appeared as Danny wearing a bedsheet and posing like Superman) that was yelling at him to go protect the girl, and forced himself to think logically.

Dani would surely be able to run away from her persuers, now that she was at full power; if injured, she would heal. She was just as strong as Danny after all, if less experienced.  
She was obviously able to take care of herself, and had, for quite a few months. And she could always go to Danny, or him, if she needed anything she couldn't get (or steal) herself. She seemed to like the freedom, anyway.  
And there was also that Vlad's mansion was in pieces and his portal destroyed, meaning that he had no house closely connected to Amity, and Danny's family, that Dani could live in. Not that she would want to live in Vlad's mansion, anyway. Maybe the Mayoral house?  
  
Oh, and THEN there was that he was half-Vlad, too. No way would she feel comfortable around him if she figured _that_ out.

Really, he wouldn't be comfortable with the situation either. He was _part teenager_ , for goodness' sake. Never mind that yeah, he kind of _was_ her father, or that the Fentons (and Jazz) already viewed him as such--or, really, anyone that saw them together; their resemblance was undeniable.  
  
Also, his existence would very possibly be quite short, and never to be repeated again, so why even bother?

  
There was a chorus of metal screeching against metal as the 'n' out of 'Fentonworks' gave up and detatched itself from the sign, crashing down right ouside the kichen windows.

  
On the other hand, she was alone in her existence. Which was Vlad's fault. Which meant that it was his fault. (And he was alone too, aside from Jazz. And Maddie the cat. He hoped his kitty hadn't been hurt...he hadn't even thought about her until now.)  
And then... Dani had come to him for help, hadn't she? That thought, egged on by bedsheet Danny, grew until it occupied the forefront of his mind, and he found himself smirking a very Vlad-like smirk.

 

"Ok," he answered his reflection in the glass. "Fine."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heeey, I'm back! Bet you thought I had given up on this! I also have the next chapter already halfway written, so... fingers crossed.


End file.
